A 17-year-old girl who suffered from a rare condition, which attacked her immune system, took a fatal paracetamol overdose, an inquest heard.

Stacey Hughes, of St Andrew's Court, Cleethorpes, suffered from idiopathic thrombotic topenia, and had told her sister that the illness had "wasted" most of her life.

However, Grimsby and North Lincolnshire coroner Paul Kelly, at an inquest at Cleethorpes Town Hall, said he could not be sure that the teenager had intended to take her own life. The hearing was told how the flow of intravenous medication given to Stacey to treat the overdose in hospital had been tampered with.

It was never established who was responsible, but medical experts told the hearing that it would not have contributed to her death.

Stacey's sister, Kerry-Anne Hughes, told the inquest that her sister suffered fatigue, constant nosebleeds and bruised easily because of the illness.

She said Stacey had told one of her friends that, because of her condition and the stress of her relationship with partner Paul Foster, she "wanted to end it".

PC Melanie Goodman, of Humberside Police, told the hearing that in interview, Mr Foster said Stacey's condition caused her to be "quite moody" and that they often had arguments because of the pain she was in.

Stacey was admitted to the accident and emergency ward at Grimsby's Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital at about 2am on May 23 last year.

Earlier that night Mr Foster had seen Stacey swallow a handful of pills before shouting that she wanted to kill herself.

When he said he was going to call for an ambulance, Stacey threatened to walk out of the house. This she did, and Mr Foster dialled 999 at 11.33pm.

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Ms Hughes told the inquest that when she arrived at the house at about 11pm, Stacey told her: "Kez, you are my sister. Leave me alone. I want to die. This illness has wasted most of my life."

Mr Foster rang 999 again, this time out of his partner's earshot, and an ambulance arrived at 11.50pm.

Hospital staff told the inquest that Stacey was "unco-operative", refused to tell them what pills she had taken, would not lie flat to be examined and "wriggled about" to obstruct the flow of antidote medication into her body.

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Pathologist Dr Mudher Al-Adnani, who carried out a post mortem examination at Sheffield Children's Hospital, concluded that the cause of death was a heart attack resulting from a codeine and paracetamol overdose.

Oltunde Ashaolu, a clinical director of A&E at the hospital, said the interruption of the antidote supply would not have contributed to Stacey's death.

He told the inquest: "The body is well-equipped to handle a paracetamol overdose for the first eight hours, so interrupting the supply doesn't cause any problems because the body is still in control anyway.

"I think that what has happened is that everything has come together – it is the combination of all these drugs that has led to the malfunction of the heart."

Coroner Mr Kelly recorded the cause of death as an overdose of codeine and paracetamol taken with "undetermined intent".

He said: "Although I have taken into account that Stacey self-administered this medication on a voluntary basis, the comments made to family, and her domestic circumstances, even together this does not persuade me that she intended to end her life."

As reported, following Stacey's death, her family let off heart-shaped lanterns in her memory at the home of her grandmother. After the hearing, Ms Hughes said Stacey was missed and added: "I'm glad it's over."

Another of Stacey's sisters, Beckie, said: "Nothing is going to bring her back."